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coondoggie writes "Earlier this year Captain America was slain as the climax to Marvel Comics' Civil War event. The renowned hero will be buried in the next issue of Marvel Comics' 'Fallen Son,' due on July 5. 'Writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in his most recent titles, according to an Associated Press story. A book centered on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; and Spider-Man battled depression. With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it's hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.'"

A busload full of lawyers crashed outsided of town. When the emergency crews arrived on the scene, they found that the local townfolk had already buried all the lawyers. Surveying the wreckage, one EMT said "the crash doesn't look that bad. Didn't any of them survive?" "Well, some of them SAID they were still alive, but you know how them lawyer fellas like to lie."

With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it's hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.

With an administration that is turning out to be as bad as the Nixon [wikipedia.org] and Harding [wikipedia.org] administrations combined, I wouldn't be at all surprised. Marvel will tell you that it's just coincidence, and it may very well be, but that doesn't mean it's not timely.

With an administration that is turning out to be as bad as the Nixon and Harding administrations combined, I wouldn't be at all surprised. Marvel will tell you that it's just coincidence, and it may very well be, but that doesn't mean it's not timely.

You forgot to add "Clinton" to that list. You do realize Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of the FALN [wikipedia.org], a Puerto Rican terrorist group responsible for more than 120 bombings and at least six deaths? And don't forget the cocaine trafficker, the bank fraudsters,

So the Red Skull assassinating Captain America is a slam on government? The arrest and surrounding Civil War hullabaloo is most likely a slam on government but Captain America's death is nothing more than a cash grab. They're just exchanging one live character with poor monthly sales and the occasional strong moment in ensemble titles for a martyr who can help bolster sales across the board. He'll be like Hal Jordan: more popular dead than he ever was alive. If this were really a slam on government, then the government would have a lot more to do with his actual death instead of it being a Red Skull masterminded event.

Exactly. And in addition to that, the government didn't beat Cap. He didn't care what the government thought (and is already known for fighting them several times throughout his career). What beat him was when he realized he was fighting the people. He gave up.I want Tony Stark to die by being slowly mashed into paste by a Hulk-Thor tagteam, but to be honest he's probably right. Vigilantes, no matter how much we love the underdog, are generally a bad thing. Civil War wasn't any more of an indictment of the

In other news, Marvel decides to make plot lines that sell comic books.How dare they kill off a character because it garners interest by fans!

Red Skull has robbed George Bush of his glory!

I think for even more, wallowing in the muck of increased sales, they should send Red Skull to GitMo, so that we can finally feel some pity for the character.... until of course, he starts working as a Prison Guard in Abu Ghraib.

Ah, see... they are just toying with you. If you keep with it, you will get a great payoff with

Why is Marvel killing-off all of their heroes? Is it to make room for new comics, pursue movie-making using all the old material, what? I think continuing the comic stories is a loss for them. Comic sales, I've heard, have been steadily declining for years.

I will say this though, "The Hulk: The End," was by far one of the best comics I've ever read. Him being the very last hero -- even human -- alive is very fitting in the Marvel universe....

To take a tip from our RIAA overlords, we can assume that this is in some way related to file sharing and peer to peer in general.

It's time we start selling comic books with a biometric lock which can only be read by one person, up to a maximum of 4 different fingers. The only explanation for these declining sales is clearly no fault of the industry.

Hero deaths in futures that aren't part of the standard Marvel universe are very common. "Days of Future Past", "The Last Avengers Story"*, "Death's Head II Miniseries", "Earth X" etc are all books that show the death of a character or set of characters in a way that does not affect the continuity of the Marvel Comics universe. "Hulk: The End" fits into that category. Hulk dies but it's a story set in a future that likely will never happen in any of Marvel's other monthly titles (or even in the Incredibl

Remember, Marvel has _three_ separate story lines going these days:
- Mainstream Marvel universe (Earth-616) (the old titles, w/ issue numbers ranging well past the hundreds
- ``Ultimates'' (Earth-1610) which has only just started to reach past 100 w/ Spiderman
- Marvel Adventures (Earth-20051) which is their line of stories suited for younger readers

Captain America is alive and well in the latter two, and as the numbers indicate they've got lots more, which get written about on a semi-

I'm amused by how the mainstream media has fallen for this marketting hype. We're geekier than that though.
Death is one of the least permanent states for a comic character. Superman died in the 1990's. He seemed to get better and he wasn't the first. I very much doubt Jean Grey was either. Even Uncle Ben has been ressurected briefly via an alternative timeline.

>it's hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.

It's been quite a while since I've read comics, but do comics today even mention Iraq? And what exactly is a "big slam on the government"? A vague commentary on the fact that (gasp!) people sometimes die, and the gov't should do something about it? Or is the death of Captain America a specific critique of Bush's policies in Iraq? Could someone who's followed the storyline enlighten me? Thanks.

"It's been quite a while since I've read comics, but do comics today even mention Iraq? And what exactly is a "big slam on the government"? A vague commentary on the fact that (gasp!) people sometimes die, and the gov't should do something about it? Or is the death of Captain America a specific critique of Bush's policies in Iraq? Could someone who's followed the storyline enlighten me? Thanks"Do comic's mention Iraq? yes regularly but always as a side note because if they bring it to much to the fore it wo

Civil War was a hamhanded attempt at political commentary in which a handful of powerful individuals decided to force a situation that would require infringing on the "rights" of many super-powered vigilantes. As the storyline wore on, we had Captain America on the side of those who wanted to preserve their right to dress up in funny pajamas and fight other people in funny pajamas anonymously, and Iron Man manufacturing a growing crisis on the other side of the argument in order to get his registration act

Isn't this one of the responsibilities artists have to the society that supports them?

The only "responsibility" that enters into it is the responsibility of these particular artists to make something that sells books for the company they work for.

In general though, as an artist I can tell you with extreme confidence that I'm not responsible for a damn thing apart from getting whatever's in my head out onto the paper/disc/website/sculpture/performance/whatever. There is no set of artist rules that demand my work be socially responsible. I can do that if I wish, but I can just as easily s

The Flag and America is nothing to do with government. Our government COULD be erased with a shrug of the peoples' shoulder or a flick of their wrist yet the flag and the meaning of America would still be the same. Those freaks in Washington are only considered America because WE allow it, period.
Capatain America, instead of dying (?) needs to fly into the Capitol and start smackin some heads. Then he would need to fly around the world apologizing to the people we have destroyed along with helping peop

I think the Skrull infiltration is likely Tony's "out". We'll find out that he knew about (or suspected) the Skrull's presence on Earth, and Registration was his roundabout way of keeping tabs on the superheros, to try and determine who was who.

Captain America gave up. Iron-Man, Reed Richards, and their goons were clearly in the wrong and Captain America gave up. Iron-Man and Reed are the ones who were committing (at best) "morally gray" acts. Iron-Man and Reed are the ones who cloned Thor, resulting in Goliath's death. Iron-Man and Reed are the ones who were supporting, guess what? The government.
Captain America gave up the fight against the forces of oppression in a nod to the government. His death is, if anything, a sign that his breed of super-hero has no place in the Fox news world that Marvel seems to favor now.
This is a slam against us. Certainly not to the government or to Iron-Man.

On one online comic forum I troll through, the majority of the readers are generally pissed off about Civil War. On the one hand, creating an effective pro-registration side meant essentially turning some superheroes evil. SHIELD shot first at Captain America - not for not wanting to register, but for not wanting to hunt down his old friends. And Iron Man lost all credibility he had in this encounter, including hiring former supervillians to start a false war with Atlantis, just to prove his point.

Problem is, all of the "good guys" weren't much better. Rather than actually providing solid arguments as to what they were opposing the government for, most of the superheroes just ran around shouting how bad the government is and smoking weed and putting flowers in their hair. The few times that Captain America had a moment in front of a reporter to explain his case, he just listed a bunch of hippie talking points, rather than actually talking about how the law could hurt superheroes, or even mentioning that SHIELD shot at him first.

Civil War could have been a chance to have some real commentary on modern issues, but it quickly devolved into just a chance for people to fight each other. There was no real discussion, no real logic, and Cap's sudden death just capped the whole thing off as being an attempt for controversy rather than any sort of political message.

Captain America's been torn apartNow he's a court jester with a broken heartHe said Turn me around and take me back to the startI must be losing my mind "are you blind?"I've seen it all a million times

Captain America ReturnsIssue #1Jan 2009The Evil Administration has finally convinced the American People that it is a self-serving entity and they are merely its pawns. It is shown that Evil shall not triumph in a Democracy as voters turned out in droves for the November election. In a landslide victory, a new President is voted into the White House, one whom the People can trust and in which they place their hopes in a New American Dream.

I'm wondering whatever happened to the NON-spandex type of comic book for kids? I know about the old days of moralistic censorship, and enjoyed "Understanding Comics" by McCloud, but I'm not seeing ANY kind of modern comic that doesn't involve stretchy or musclebound heroics. The only thing you find in the bookstores are strip-compendiums, like Garfield/Peanuts (too simple for my kid), or Calvin&Hobbes (some humor too esoteric). The rest are very expensive translations of Manga, a fair bit of which is not really pre-teen suitable. As bad as I think Disney can be for rotting your brain, I grew up with all the Scrooge McDuck titles and it at least gave me an early appreciation for the sequential-art mode of storytelling.

Oh my gosh. The repressed memories. It didn't even register when I read the parent's post, but now after reading yours I remember it all. Rodimus Prime... ugghh. And to the other poster talking about "You got the touch"... its all flowing back too quickly....

Given that the Capt sorta is the American spirit and all that, I think his death is a bit more appropriate. We have been crushed and sold as a people. We have allowed our constitution to be highjacked, we have allowed our laws to be sold, we have allowed fear to rule our lives. There are a handful that are upset about this, but they are a minority by a long shot. I can't count the times I hear "If you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide" when I talk about how wrong the spying is, or even "Well did it, so why are you upset now?" like I was alive or aware of the others that have done it, or that the current crop aren't more blatant about breaking more laws to do it.

The fact is, most people don't seem to care. King George was reelected. You can point to his low approval rating, but congress is even lower, and noone is actually doing anything about it. Slick Willy got a blowjob and it was the end of the world, King George starts a war, usurps our freedoms, potentially stole 2 elections...well...that doesn't make as good sensationalist dirty gossip story so noone cares.

American Spirit is all but dead. Noone cares or is too busy shoveling themselves out of debt in our insane buy now pay later, keeping up with the Jones' culture. Lets not forget our wonderful lawmakers passed that nice law to make sure those poor credit companies don't have their money stolen by dirty citizens declaring bankruptcy!

So in other words, there's nothing stopping them from at least getting the impeachment. Considering they've only been able to pass symbolic, non-binding resolutions in defiance of the president, one would think they'd jump at the chance to make such a loud (if ultimately inconsequential) statement.

I thiink the GP post has it right; they don't want to expose their own to the same treatment.

It's very clear to me that our politicians care not about the country, but what their country can do for them.I have decided to adopt the same opinions. I was born in the USA and given the usual indoctrination about the 'land of the free' and 'home of the brave'. How strange the same people who railed against the commies because they spy on their people and lie to them, are requesting that the USA spy on it's people too! THey don't have to ask for lies, Bush already did that when he lied about Yellow Cak

because unlike the last President where the republicans owned most of the house and where able to force through a extremely unpopular impeachment proceding, the Democrats only own a slight majority.

But more importantly because impeaching him wont get us out of Iraq any faster, which the Democrat leaders stated quite clear to the rest of the party when the younger ones wanted to impeach AND try him for treason after winning congress.

Because:1. he's only got a year and a half left in office2. he's the dumb one - that would still leave cheney - the brains behind the idiot - as president3. it wouldn't help get the country out of iraq4. there aren't enough democrat senators to convict - so it would be a waste of time

Notice - that nowhere on the list is a concern that he doesn't deserve it, or isn't guilty of more than enough to warrant it. He surely is.

Even if they had not, being an idiot is, perhaps unfortunately, not what impeachment is for. Neither is starting a war that should not have been started.

Now if there were some concrete proof that they knowingly discarded all conflicting evidence and fabricated their own in a deliberate attempt to force the country into a war they knew was unnecessary, there might be a case. Personally I would not doubt that is exactly what ha

Actually... Bill Clinton did not commit perjury. Arguably he did lie during a press conference, and he certainly did intend to deceive during that press conference, but "perjury" is a word with a strict legal definition, and it does not hold in this case.

The details in the matter are that while under oath during a civil court case brought by Paula Jones then President Clinton was asked if he had had sex or an affair with Monica Lewinsky. He asked for clarification about what constituted sex and an affair, and sex was defined, BY THE PROSECUTOR, as penile-vaginal intercourse. He then answered that he had not had sex under this definition. I have never heard anyone say that Bill Clinton received more than a blow-job from Monica Lewinsky.

So please stop using the word "perjury". It is simply wrong to use in this case. You can say he lied (people may disagree on that point), and you can certainly say that he intended to mislead people (that cannot be disputed), but he did not perjure himself.

The subsequent disbarment was much more about the Whitewater investigations, and was highly politically charged. To the point that facts were mostly irrelevant in the case.

I finally understand why he was chosen by Bush. It's a reverse Dan Quayle. No one wanted George H Bush removed because Dan Quayle was an idiot. Now no one want George W Bush removed because Dick Cheney is EVIL.

because it's the same shit, different day. People roll their eyes, but in most respects it is a one party system. An club of rich and elite people manipulating and being manipulated by the system.

Maybe if we cared about what's going on in the world enough to resist the smoke screens that are blown in front our face something could be done. But as long as none of us are willing to write a nasty letter to the news media when they spend weeks cove

You say perjury like the guy was lying about weapons of mass destruction. Please, he lied about being an adulterer. That's something cared about only by arrogant pricks who like to enforce their morals on others yet are just as culpable for the same dirty dealings.

He committed perjury in a sexual harassment trial for a former subordinate. His behavior with his current set of subordinates was certainly pertinent to the case. Guess which party is responsible for sexual harassment laws?

Yes, it was a witchhunt, but the President, of all people, should be expected to tell the truth when under oath.

Only in America. In the rest of the world, nobody would have asked the president that question. It was a personal matter, and has absolutely nothing to do with his politics. Lying about it was a sensible move, and something just about any sensible person would do.

On the other hand, deliberately deceiving the entire world that you are invading Iraq because they are hiding WMD (and they are som

The Constitution itself was a coup d'eta. Go and read the Articles of Confederation and you'll see a document that gives a lot more power to the common man. Gotta love all that "greatest democracy on Earth" rhetoric.

Do you really think the Democrats are better then the Republicans? As far as I am concerned they are largely the same party. The only candidate who voted against the war and will get us out is Ron Paul.

I remember back in 2000 when people like you were saying that Bush was such a wonderful guy. They would rave about how Bush would clean up the culture in both parties. Now you've come back and are saying the same thing about Ron Paul. Another Texas Republican, another teary evangelist. Why should anyone believe you?

Ron Paul has a consistent voting record going back thirty years. He's one of the very few congressmen who didn't vote for the PATRIOT ACT or the authorization of force in Iraq. He personally doesn't accept Medicare or Medicaid because he doesn't believe in them, but instead does the work for free or lowered payment. You may not agree for everything he stands for, I don't, but there's no question that the guy is authentic.

Do you really think the Democrats are better then the Republicans? As far as I am concerned they are largely the same party. The only candidate who voted against the war and will get us out is Ron Paul.

People like you are the same as Naderites. If you really think this country would've been no different if we had Democrats in charge of the three branches of government instead of Republicans for 6 out of the past 7 years, then you're nuts.

No. Slick Willy used the power of his office to sexually harass female employees with impunity. I've known men who were fired for speaking to the wrong woman and she reports that she felt 'uncomfortable'.Policemen beat the shit out of a drugged-up black man and get away scott free, until other black people start a riot. Then the feds step in and subject the policemen to double-jeopardy.Simpson kills his wife but beats the wrap because he has expen

What I don't understand is why the same people that look with despair upon our president and congress want our government doing so much to begin with (like expanding its involvement in health care one one side of the political spectrum or deporting hard working people because they were born to the wrong parents at the wrong latitude/longitude on the other). We do have a pretty good country over all, but its the people that make it that way and our elected officials either spend their time pointing fingers a

I recommend that you acquaint yourself with the term "stovepiping", with how Cheney derailed the CIA investigation into Iran's nuclear programme by exposing the identity of the lead investegator, a woman we now all know as Valerie Plame. I also recommend that you pay attention to the speech again, to the way it cherry-picked to support a shaky assumption. You would also be wise to note that the intelligence Bush showed before the invasion was heavily redacted to make uncertainties seem like certainties: all

Oh I know it can't be proven that they knowingly lied, though it's obvious that they were hugely incompetent, and I would be stunned if you could ever get an intelligent intelligence assessment that made a blanket statement and insisted that there were no doubts. It doesn't work that way. They lied to themselves.As for the "war" you're referring to, I am assuming that you're talking about the titular "War on Terra" that's been going on since the 70's, is still going on today, and will be going on for genera

I think that's the point. I don't read comics anything like as much as I used to, and hadn't read any "classic" universe Marvel for a few years, when I picked up the trade paperback of Civil War a couple of months ago. The whole thing seemed to be an allegory for current US politics with Captain America representing the liberal "we must not let the terrorists win by abrogating our freedoms" wing and with the killer android and concentration camp designing Reed Richards and Tony Stark representing the neocon "things have changed and the world is too dangerous for our old freedoms" wing. The point is the neocons do win. Captain America is shown to be out of touch and unrepresentative of (and in the final issue he is attacked by) the ordinary Americans he purports to represent, whereas Richards and Stark are hailed as true heroes. Sure, Sue gets a bit miffed with Reed about the whole killer android version of Thor thing, running off to join Caps rebels but she soons gets over her feminine mood swing and comes back - in an interesting parallel to recent Scooter Libby developments, Reed demands, and gets, a full pardon for Sue while his concentration camp is slowly filled with all the other post humans who refuse to co-operate with Reed and Stark.

And that's it. Reed and Stark turn into Henry Bendix types who kill and imprison people to help bring about their conception of a finer world with no comebacks (unless, as I fervently hope, at some point during World War Hulk, the Hulk removes Stark from his armour via the neck and then uses the emtpy shell as a latrine). The whole book seemed to be an endorsement of the idea of the competent, benign (unless you disagree with him - in which case its Prison 42 for you) dictator and, for me at least, left a bad taste. A shame as I've really liked Millar's work on The Ultimates.

I take the point. The problem is the tone of the book (especially the ending) makes that interpretation very difficult to sustain. Still it did its job, I guess, as, sucker that I am, I'm now buying World War Hulk to see if Richards and Stark finally get the kicking they so richly deserve.

Heh, you should be offended at the comic writing more than anything else. The fact that Wonder Woman, arguably the most high-profile and iconic female superhero, is constantly written to be stupid and irrational in her actions, is astounding. Writers simply don't know what to do with female characters most of the time and often portray them in silly ways.

By killing off Captain America, aren't you letting the neocons win? I'd rather have seen an episode where Captain America punishes a perjuring White House aide...

Then you need to read Black Summerhttp://www.blacksummer.net/ [blacksummer.net] by Warren Ellis. A superhero snaps and kills the sitting American president. The varient cover is a ridiculously detailed picture of said hero in the oval office, with blood splattered on everything.

The image of him punching out Adolph Hitler in 1941 is still one of the iconic images in comic history. Personally, I prefer the more embarrassing stuff that Marvel later try to bury (like the issue [captain-america.us] where Cap took on those evil communist college professors, or the way he dodged the whole Vietnam issue, or that emo period where he was all "Oh, I'm such an anachronism, wah, wah!").

1)Is this really news?
2)I know a lot of people really enjoy comics and all, and maybe it was a reflection of the USA or something (I don't know. I don't read these comics so maybe I shouldn't be talking), but it's still just a comic and just another twist in a storyline. The creative process will continue on and still produce some kind of literature that the comic's fan base will still love.

Comic books should be taken as serious a form of art expression as any book, painting or sculpture. The values displayed, the characters, their flaws and strengths...they are reflections of society and its desires and dreams. Even the most fantastical of the comic books contains truths of human nature that we face every day.

Thats too bad. Everyone should make some time for some sort of hobby. Be it reading, or painting, or coding, or playing video games, everyone needs some kind of outlet. Try to take some time in the evening and talk with your family, or if you have young children, you could read to them. I mean if you're not reading books or enjoying a past time because you're thinking about the price of gas... you're thinking about the price of gas e